


puzzle pieces

by seratonins



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Childhood Friends, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26926204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seratonins/pseuds/seratonins
Summary: “Do you know why I chose JYPE?” It was a mystery back in the day, yet no one had dared to ask, not even her. When Chaeyoung shakes her head no, Dahyun says, "You were here."Oh. There’s a moment of silence where Chaeyoung doesn’t even dare to breathe, her heart caught in her throat.(or,Chaeyoung doesn't believe in soulmates. She still wears the necklace every day.)
Relationships: Kim Dahyun/Son Chaeyoung
Comments: 5
Kudos: 134





	puzzle pieces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [likeuwuahh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeuwuahh/gifts).



> commissioned by the lovely zeb, thank u so so much for trusting in me!!  
> the theme was 'soulmates', focusing on their puzzle necklaces. this was so fun and emotional to write lol  
> 

Dahyun leaves the day before summer vacation starts.

"I'm really sorry, okay?" She says through tears and boogers, sniffing all of it away. She takes Chaeyoung's tiny hand and places it in her own, drawing circles on her skin to try and calm her down. Chaeyoung can barely see through her tears, but she can see the shapes she draws in the back of her mind. "I'll send you emails, Chaeng! And we can be Facebook friends, my mom said I could make one just to talk to you."

Chaeyoung tears her hand away from Dahyun's, and stomps her little feet on the ground. "Why do you have to leave?! I don't want you to!"

The kids playing on the end of the street stop and point at them, whispering among themselves, but Chaeyoung pays them no mind as her white shoes tint with green and dirt from the grass she steps on. Dahyun places both her arms around her arms to try and calm her down despite her own tears. It’s her duty, after all, to take care of Chaeyoung since she’s a year younger.

Chaeyoung knows Dahyun doesn’t want to leave, but it’s still hard to accept her only friend is leaving and probably not coming back. They’d made plans of watching Toy Story this weekend together, but Dahyun’s leaving today and she’s just hearing about it _now_. Not even her own parents had told her. It stings like a papercut.

"I'm sorry!" Dahyun apologizes through tears. "I really don't want to, but my dad got a job there and it's very important, so he can't say no."

That just makes Chaeyoung cry harder, and Dahyun pulls her close and cries silent tears into her hair. They stay like that for a minute; Dahyun crying silently, Chaeyoung clinging to her.

“Can I fit into your suitcase?” she asks. “Did you make room for me?”

Dahyun shakes her head. “I already tried poking holes in it so you’d have room to breathe, but my mom caught me so I’m grounded because I ruined my suitcase. It has tape all over it now. Plus she said that would be kidnapping.”

“It’s not kidnapping if I want to go!” Quiet defeat settles into Chaeyoung’s six-year-old tiny body when Dahyun flinches the tiniest bit, so she sighs and nods. “It’s okay, at least you tried.”

“Remember when we used to fit in laundry baskets?” Dahyun giggles at the memory, her eyes still shiny with tears. “And that time your mom almost threw us in the washing machine because she didn’t see us hiding in the dirty laundry.”

Chae giggles, wiping at her face with her hand, sniffling. “Yeah, I do. My mom almost killed us.”

The sun is setting. There are orange specks reflecting on Dahyun’s skin, the sky tinted pink and yellow. Chaeyoung wants to take her hand and dip it in the colors, make a drawing for Dahyun before she leaves. She would’ve made something for her if she had heard sooner. Something to remember her by.

“It’s almost dark,” Dahyun points out, pulling away from the hug and wiping her tears away with her hand. “My mom’s picking me up any minute now.”

Chaeyoung sniffles, trying to bite back the tears again. She glances up, where the shoes hang from the street lights — she’d always thought it strange but cool-looking, although Dahyun had always found it pointless, even as a seven year old. _Don’t you think it looks cool?_ she’d asked, and Dahyun had just shrugged, _If you think so._

She’d planned on doing it one day when she was a teenager (because teenagers do cool stuff all the time), probably with Dahyun because all of her plans include Dahyun one way or another. She’d move to the city, become a painter, meet Picasso (he’s alive, right?), have an apartment and thirteen dogs, and Dahyun would live with her to kill the bugs when she’s too scared to do so. Plus Dahyun can make pancake batter really well.

What’s her future without Dahyun? Living at a big, scary apartment where spiders crawl day and night, all on her own? Who will help her with her thirteen dogs? What is she even going to say to Picasso without Dahyun to help her find the words? And who will hold Dahyun’s hand when she starts fidgeting when she’s too anxious? Who will see her tears when she hides in her room to cry them?

“Oh!” Dahyun nods, as if just now remembering something. “I’ve got something for you, my mom helped me pick it.”

She puts her hands in her pockets, starts rummaging through candy wrappers and hair ties until she pulls out something shiny and golden. She holds it up, and the light catches it just then: It’s a necklace, and from the necklace hangs a single puzzle piece, bathed in gold.

“I found them at a yard sale near my house,” Dahyun explains, offering it to Chaeyoung. When Chaeyoung takes it, Dahyun reaches and pulls at the chain that is hanging from her own neck — she’s wearing the exact same necklace. “They’re matching necklaces for you and me. So you don’t forget me, and I don’t forget you.”

She holds her own puzzle piece up, then encourages Chaeyoung to do the same — she guides her hand to Dahyun’s own and she fits the pieces together perfectly, like they complete each other. 

“Like puzzle pieces,” she smiles. “We’re not complete without the other.”

Even after her mom picks her up and sends her to a city far, far away, and after Chaeyoung spends a weekend locked inside her room, drawing on walls and crying under her bed — she doesn’t think she could ever forget someone like Dahyun. Not the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles, not the way she’s not scared of bugs so it’s her who she calls when there’s a random spider in her room, not the way she eats chocolate like it’s her last meal on Earth.

She wears the necklace like a badge of honor to school every day.

She sees Dahyun again seven years later.

Chaeyoung thinks she sees a ghost, at first. She’s in the city for a while, because her mom’s getting this big shot promotion at work, so she’s helping her look for apartments for the entire family. She’s thirteen, she has bangs, she wears entirely too much eyeliner, and she rolls her eyes when anything but EXO comes on the radio.

They stop by the JYPE building because she also kind of likes Miss A, just to see what’s up, and finds out they are holding auditions.

Her mom nudges her with her shoulder, her eyebrows raising. “You should try it out.”

Chaeyoung frowns. “Why?”

“You have a lovely voice,” Her mom tells her. “The entire house can hear you when you’re in the shower, you know, and we all know you pretend to audition in front of the mirror anyway. And, not that I look through your diary or anything, but I know you write songs.”

“ _Mom!_ ”

She ends up going anyway, because yeah, she likes writing, she likes singing, she thinks she’s not half bad at rapping, and that there’s a chance for her to shine. There’s this part of her that always cared for theatrics, to be the center of attention, to succeed in life. Who doesn’t want to see their names up in lights? People wanting to hear what you have to say? Say something meaningful?

There’s a long, long line. She’s a bit disheartened by it. She doesn’t know anyone here, she’s new in town, and she doesn’t feel half as experienced as the rest of the people in front or behind her. She’s wearing a black oversized t-shirt and some grey sweatpants and she feels terribly underdressed when the girl in front of her is wearing _sequins._

Still, she goes and kills it, of course. If there’s one thing Chaeyoung has is confidence. She believes in herself. When she goes for something, it’s because she knows she’ll make it.

The woman in the panel smiles at her and asks her to write a phone number down after she’s done, that they’ll be in touch, and that she was very impressive. She leaves the room feeling even more confident and better about herself, so much so that she doesn’t see where she’s going and she immediately crashes into another person.

She falls to the ground with a squeal, but before she can start apologizing, something catches her eye. A golden puzzle piece, dangling from this stranger’s neck. 

She looks up, desperate to find a face she almost no longer recognizes, and she finds herself staring straight at Kim Dahyun, who is now fourteen and a few inches taller than her, which she obviously takes personal offense to. 

“Oh my God,” Dahyun says, her mouth hanging open. “Chaeyoung? Is it really you?”

Her own eyes fall to Chaeyoung’s neck, where she finds the same exact necklace staring back at her. Suddenly Chaeyoung feels the urge to simultaneously hide under a rock and run to her childhood best friend’s arms.

She feels embarrassed — ashamed of having worn this necklace for so goddamn long. She knows it’s not Dahyun’s fault she had to leave, it’s not her fault that somehow their relationship died off, that the phone calls went from every day to once a week, to once a month, then completely died off. It’s not her fault, but it doesn’t stop Chaeyoung from being angry at her. For leaving _her_ behind, too.

She still wears the necklace. Takes it off before showering, puts it back on to sleep, tucks it under her shirt every morning. Her hand twitches, wanting to reach out to Dahyun; to the necklace.

She smiles, a bit strained. “Hey. Yeah, it’s me.”

“What the… what the heck?” She almost curses, uncharacteristically so. It’s weird to see Dahyun grown up now, she remembers the little kid version of her, with long black hair and pale skin. She’s not changed a bit. She’s just… grown taller, maybe lost some baby fat from her cheeks, but it's still undeniably Dahyun. “What are you doing here?”

Dahyun looks like she wants to reach out to her, touch her or hug her, but she’s holding herself back. Chaeng is glad for it, even if she wants to hug her too, it still feels like it’d be too much.

“My mom got a job in the city,” she nods. “And I decided to try my luck auditioning.”

“Wow… That’s— That’s great,” Dahyun says, a bit breathless. She huffs, then shakes her head. “I really didn’t expect to see you here.”

 _Or ever,_ Chaeyoung thinks, bitterly. “Me neither. Are you auditioning?”

“Oh, actually, yeah!” she clears her throat. “I’m auditioning in all agencies. SM, YG and JYPE. My mom says I’d be a good celebrity.”

“You were always really funny,” Chaeyoung admits, this time reaching for Dahyun’s arm to brush it lightly. Dahyun’s smile grows bigger, and Chaeyoung allows herself to smile back, just this once. It's the truth. She hid a lot, but she liked being the center of attention. Dahyun didn’t mind playing the clown to make other people laugh or feel better.

“Thank you,” she blushes. “And you were always such an artist! You were writing songs even when we were six, remember?”

Chaeyoung blushes, too. “They were mostly about dogs or ice cream, but yeah.”

“They were still good!” She giggles, and she sees her act instinctively: Dahyun’s hand settles on her necklace, and she starts fidgeting with the pendant as if it’s a reflex. She’s nervous. _Old habits die hard_ , Chaeyoung thinks. She stops when she sees Chaeyoung notice, though, and she looks embarrassed as her arm drops to her side. “How do you think you did?”

“Uhm,” Chae scratches the back of her neck. “Good. Really good, actually. I think I might have a chance.”

Dahyun smiles. Her eyes crinkle just the way they used to do when she was younger, when the sun would bathe her in golden rays and the sky was clear. “That’s great! Hopefully mine goes well, too.”

“I’m sure it will,” she nods. “Uh, listen, my mom’s been waiting for me outside for like two hours, so I have to go before she drags me out of here herself.”

Dahyun’s smile visibly deflates. “Oh.”

“Yeah...”

“Do you - do you want my number?” Dahyun asks. Her hands fly to her necklace, but she quickly takes notice of what she was going to do and they drop to her side once again. “To keep in touch.”

 _I’ve missed you,_ Chaeyoung wants to say. _I still wear the necklace every day._

“Yeah,” she nods. “Yeah, sure.”

She ends up getting a call the next day, and next thing she knows she’s moved to the city, she’s a trainee at JYP Entertainment, and life is starting to feel entirely too surreal. She starts assisting classes about singing, english pronunciation, dancing, rapping, and all those classes leave her tired, but not as much as Dahyun does. 

Chaeyoung thinks about her a lot. Most of their classes, if not all of them, are together. She hears other trainees whispering that she’s the mystery girl that was chosen by all Big Three agencies, but she chose JYP in the end. There’s a lot of speculation as to why, but Chaeyoung doesn’t ask her and neither does anyone else.

She avoids her. Chaeyoung thinks she’s looking after her own heart, but it feels like an empty excuse, like she’s scared. She doesn’t take off her necklace.

She gets early to her dancing lesson on Monday because there’s this one step she keeps stumbling over, and she finds Dahyun already there, sitting by the mirrors and with her headphones on.

Chaeyoung clears her throat a bit awkwardly then regrets it immediately after because she could’ve easily escaped this, but now Dahyun’s looked up and there’s no running away now. She smiles slightly when she realizes who it is.

“Oh,” she says. “Hi, Chaeyoung.”

“Hey,” she responds, cursing at herself. “What are you doing here?”

“I like getting here early,” Dahyun shrugs. “I want to practice. Why are you here?”

“There’s a part of the choreography I can’t really understand,” she admits, a bit embarrassed. “I kind of wanted to practice before I made a fool of myself in examinations and got kicked out.”

Dahyun rolls her eyes at her. “You’re not _that_ bad.”

Great compliment. Chaeyoung says, wryly, “Thanks.”

“I’ll show you,” Dahyun stands up, then she frowns slightly. “Unless - unless you don’t want me to.”

“No, no - it’s - it’s fine. I’d appreciate your help,” Chaeyoung nods. The air grows thicker, more awkward. Dahyun must’ve noticed that she’s been avoiding her like the plague. She hates that there’s this space between them now; they used to be inseparable, joint at the hip. Then Chaeyoung reminds herself _she_ built this distance, and now she has to live with it. That’s what being spiteful does to you.

Dahyun shows her the move, and they spent the next half hour or so practicing together. It’s awkward but helpful, and Chaeyoung finally masters it almost ten minutes before class actually starts. The tension leaves after Dahyun’s third attempt at being an instructor. She’s funny, jokes slip out of her like they live in her tongue, and Chaeyoung laughs because she’s tired of being a moody teenager all the time. Dahyun giggles when Chaeyoung misses a step and it’s the prettiest sound she’s heard in a while. The city is too loud sometimes, and the sound reminds her of home, far from the highway and the city lights.

When they are done Dahyun’s barely broken a sweat. “Why didn’t you call me?”

Chaeyoung frowns. “Huh?”

“I gave you my number,” she explains. “You didn’t call me.”

“Oh,” Chaeyoung’s heart sinks to the pit of her stomach. She hadn’t thought Dahyun would notice, to be completely honest. “I’m sorry.”

Dahyun bites her lip, then nods. “Okay.”

The class begins filling with trainees then, and the moment is lost. Dahyun stays by her side though and Chaeyoung lets her, and her mind reels and reels and reels until the class is done and she can barely stand up from exhaustion. Dahyun lingers even when the room starts clearing out again, and Chaeyoung reaches for her arm.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I am. It’s just… It’s been hard.”

“What?” Dahyun questions, not maliciously. She sounds concerned.

 _Everything_ , Chaeyoung things. _Moving, singing, dancing, wearing the necklace. Seeing you again. Remembering that you left me. Trying to be angry at you._

“Stuff,” she shrugs. Then she shakes her head at her own stupidity and says, “I missed you.”

Dahyun smiles, a bit sad. “I missed you too.”

(She nails her examination. She does text Dahyun a thank you later when she gets home.)

Their friendship develops slowly. Her and Dahyun end up going to the same school, so they walk together to the bus stop every morning, Dahyun introduces her to their classmates, and Chaeyoung doesn’t feel stupid for wearing the necklace for the next two years.

They aren’t as close as they used to be — Chaeyoung is more often than not overly cautious, and they speak and are friends, but it’s not the same as last time. She’s not mad, not anymore, but she’s a bit frightened. She never tells Dahyun she ever was either, but she doesn’t need to know. Sometimes when she thinks about Dahyun being upset her heart twists inside her chest.

She makes friends with some other trainees. There’s a girl from Taiwan called Tzuyu, who speaks three whole sentences in korean, but she’s so pretty most trainees kind of hate her. Chaeyoung thinks she’s really nice; she doesn’t speak much but she always tries hard to understand other people no matter what. There’s also Jeongyeon, who in Chaeyoung’s humble opinion, is the coolest person in the entire world.

Some days some trainees gather around the cafeteria at night and joke around. Most of the time it’s Jeongyeon and two other trainees: Nayeon, who’s already kind of famous from being in a couple of music videos, and Jihyo, who’s been here for almost ten years. Sometimes the Japanese team hangs out with them too. 

It’s after lunch that a couple of girls are hanging in the cafeteria because the choreographer just called in sick, which means they have two hours on their own before their singing lesson today, and somehow Chaeyoung ends up at a table with Dahyun sandwiched between a girl called Mina and another called Momo.

“He’s super cute,” Nayeon coos at them. “And he totally likes the same things I like, too. I think he might be my soulmate.”

“Soulmate?” The girl next to her, Mina, asks in a slight accent. One of the Japanese girls, Sana (she thinks her name is) repeats something in Japanese at her, and she nods. “Oh. Meant to be.”

“Yes, exactly!” Nayeon nods. “It’s like, destiny.”

Jeongyeon rolls her eyes. “You say that about every guy who walks through that door.”

“You’re just jealous,” she rolls her eyes. “Do you not believe in soulmates, Jeongyeon?”

Jeongyeon blushes, which is a first, honestly. “Yeah, I do. I just don’t think every person I meet is my soulmate.”

“Soulmates can also be platonic,” Sana says, and her arm is wrapped around Momo’s. “Like, friends. Right?”

“Maybe,” Jihyo nods. “It’s different for every person.”

“What about you?” Nayeon’s eyes fall on both her and Chaeyoung, and Chaeyoung feels intimidated because Nayeon is honest to God scary, sometimes. “Do you guys believe in soulmates?”

Dahyun’s eyes fall on her, like she’s waiting for her to respond. She tries not to squirm under everyone’s gaze and shakes her head.

“No,” she says. “Soulmates aren’t real.”

Nayeon’s mouth falls open. “What? You don’t?”

“It’s stupid,” she shrugs. “Someone that’s supposed to complete you, destined to be with you — it’s stupid. They aren’t real. You make your own destiny.”

“It’s not about making your own destiny,” Mina offers. “It’s more like… eh, sharing your destiny with someone, isn’t it? It doesn’t have to be divine intervention.”

“It’s just the person that understands you the most,” Jihyo nods.

“Like _he_ understands _me_!” Nayeon exclaims.

“Stop interrupting!” Jihyo chastises, smacking her friend across the shoulder. “What I’m saying is, your soulmate will love you and be with you unconditionally. A true bond between two souls.”

Chaeyoung makes a face. “I still don’t think that’s a thing.”

“Waaah,” Sana pouts. “That’s so cynical.”

Jeongyeon turns to the tallest person sitting at the table. “What about you, Tzuyu? Do you think soulmates exist?”

While the others interrogate Tzuyu, Dahyun turns to Chaeyoung again. Her eyes look sad, disappointed. She asks, “Do you really mean it?”

“What?”

“You don’t believe in soulmates?” She’s fidgeting with her necklace.

Chaeyoung chuckles. “Is it that weird?”

“No, it’s —” Dahyun shakes her head. “It’s fine. I just - I was just wondering if you meant it.”

She can tell something is bothering her, but Dahyun won’t say anything unless she feels ready to do so, so Chaeyoung brushes it off and focuses on what Tzuyu’s saying. They don’t speak about it.

Sixteen happens, which is a whole thing on it’s own. It’s all blurry, rushed, and so, _so_ terrifying. Sometimes she has days where she just crawls on her bed and cries for a few minutes, her black eyeliner streaming down her cheeks and staining her pillowcase. She’s just a girl, she’s just sixteen, yet it feels like she has the weight of her own destiny in her shoulders. 

Dahyun being there, it helps more than she’ll ever know. She hugs her when she’s feeling too stressed, speaks for her when she can’t find the words. Believes in her when she doesn’t, and vice versa. Chaeyoung holds her hand when Dahyun starts fidgeting, and when she’s not there she has the necklace, so she holds that instead.

The good moments are great, but the bad moments take a toll on both of them. They don’t speak much about this heavy anguish and fear they both (and every trainee) feel — they’ve trained for years, gave up their adolescence to make their dreams come true, and sometimes it feels farther away than near — but Dahyun can tell when things start getting to Chaeyoung, because she starts to make herself smaller. She hides in their dorm and draws her feelings away and doesn’t speak to anyone but herself.

The scariest thing about the whole thing is thinking about not making it together. She doesn’t say anything though, she just clutches her necklace and prays (Dahyun would be proud).

She’s been killing herself in the practice room, Momo’s been helping her get this dance move correctly for one of their presentations but she’s just not good enough at it.

“Try with the other leg,” Momo suggests, but there’s no use. 

After half an hour Momo leaves with the excuse of urgently needing a shower and she’s left alone, although not for long. Dahyun walks in to find Chaeyoung obsessively staring at herself in the mirror while trying to do that stupid dance move.

“Hey,” she greets. “It’s late.”

It’s three AM. “I know.”

Dahyun doesn’t say anything for approximately one and a half minutes, then sighs. “You should sleep.”

“I need to practice,” Chaeyoung shakes her head. “I have to get this right.”

“Chae, _stop_ ,” Dahyun is tentative to reach her, touch her. She stops herself. “You can get it in the morning. You’re in major, you should relax a bit.”

“That’s the worst time to relax,” Chaeyoung shakes her head, then says, without thinking, “I can’t relax anyway, you’re in Minor.”

Dahyun stops. “What?”

Chaeyoung thinks, _fuck._ Then, _fuck it._ “You’re in Minor, I can’t relax if you’re not in Major with me.”

“Oh,” Dahyun looks like the wind’s been knocked out of her. “You — you want us to debut together.”

“Of course I do,” she nods, and feels like a weight’s been lifted off her shoulders, like she’s finally letting go of a secret. Like she can finally admit that she cares about Dahyun without feeling angry at herself. 

“I thought you were mad at me,” Dahyun admits, looking at the ground. “For leaving when we were kids.”

Chaeyoung feels a pang of pain in her chest. “I’m stubborn,” she says. “I was hurt. It’s not your fault you had to leave, but I was still hurt.”

“I know, I just — I wanted to give you your space,” Dahyun nods. “But I did miss you and I want us to debut together too.”

“I still wore the necklace,” Chaeyoung says, because secrets are spilling out of her tongue and she’s tired of keeping them. “Every day, even after you left, even after we stopped talking to each other.”

“Do you know why I chose JYPE?” It was a mystery back in the day, yet no one had dared to ask, not even her. When Chaeyoung shakes her head no, Dahyun says, "You were here."

 _Oh._ There’s a moment of silence where Chaeyoung doesn’t even dare to breathe, her heart caught in her throat. Then Dahyun reaches across the room, her hand searching for hers tentatively, afraid of breaking this unspoken distance that they both built around each other. Chaeyoung reaches too.

Dahyun smiles; the one that makes Chae wonder if it makes her cheeks hurt. “Let’s go to sleep, okay? We can work on the dance move in the morning together.”

Chaeyoung nods. 

They both end up in Minor that week, and Dahyun high fives her when she steps out of the stage. She’s sad, but she has Dahyun. She’ll manage.

Semi-finals are around the corner, and everyone is so nervous they can hardly eat. Even Sana, who is usually the glue holding them together, can hardly speak ever since Momo left. At night, when everyone is sound asleep and Chaeyoung keeps tossing and turning in bed, Dahyun climbs up to her bed, wraps her arms around her. Chaeyoung falls asleep to the beat of Dahyun’s heart.

“It’ll be okay,” Dahyun says. Chaeyoung believes her.

Somehow they both make it, Momo and Tzuyu are back and TWICE is born. As they call Dahyun’s name, Chaeyoung plays so much with her necklace the gold starts chipping, and her fingers tint golden. 

It’s their first fansign. It’s been an entire month filled with firsts; first song, first presentation, first stage, everything is so shiny and new and exciting and overwhelming. She’s glad to have Dahyun with her. Sometimes she’s not sure if she’d ever make it without her by her side, really.

There’s like, 20 people who want to talk to her and are like, _I collect pictures of you and I also think you’re an angel sent from above_ . Shit’s crazy. Dahyun steals glances over to her side just to check on her (she is the oldest of the two, after all), and when she catches her eye she’s like, _yeah, I can’t believe this either._

It’s crazy how close she also feels to the other girls, too. Jeongyeon is still basically the coolest person on the planet. Momo is the second. Nayeon is no longer the scary one, instead she’s the funny one and Jihyo takes the title away from Nayeon— still, she’s never met someone who she feels safer around. Sana is probably the most affectionate person she’s ever met, Mina the sweetest, and Tzuyu the most hard working. 

She’s lucky, really, that she's in a group with seven strangers that no longer feel like strangers. She warms up to them so quickly she thinks they might’ve been connected in another life; one where things are sometimes easier, or perhaps one where things are worse. 

The agency is already speaking of another comeback and another concept, and Chaeyoung is equal parts excited and exhausted.

“Were you and Dahyun friends before Sixteen?” one of the fans asks.

She’s never really spoken about it in Sixteen, about how she and Dahyun were actually friends before she even started at JYPE. Chaeyoung nods.

“Yes,” she replies. “We’ve been friends for a long time.” She reaches for her neck and pulls out the necklace from inside her shirt, and the fan coos. “She gifted me this necklace — she has the matching puzzle piece.”

“Like she completes you,” the fan says, excited.

That makes her think back on when they were kids, when Dahyun had said the same thing, and feels a strange sort of longing on her chest. Wonders if Dahyun feels it too, maybe, when she thinks about her. It’s not like she’s not complete without Dahyun, they are both their own person-- but when they are together, it just feels like something is complete. Not each other… just, in general. Like, the world feels more balanced when they have each other. Like it’s always meant to be this way.

At some point they are taking questions from fans as a group, and one of them asks Dahyun, “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?”

“Paris!” Dahyun’s quick to answer. “I have the whole trip planned out. I want to visit the Eiffel Tower, and also try authentic French toast.”

Chaeyoung asks, “Did you make room in your plans for me?”

She means it as a joke, but somehow she feels like the little girl who cried in Dahyun’s shoulders before she left and never came back, asking if she’d make room for her in her suitcase so they could escape together — like she’s asking her to keep her in her thoughts, to think about her. Please, _remember about me._

Dahyun nods, looks at Chaeyoung like she’s grown two heads, because _duh_. 

“Yeah, of course I did,” she nods at the crowd and says, “You can fit on my suitcase.”

She shares a room with Tzuyu and Dahyun. During Sixteen they developed the (very embarrassing) habit of sleeping together, so now they have to wait for Tzuyu to fall asleep so Chaeyoung can climb off the bed and sneak into Dahyun’s to get a wink of sleep for early practice. In the morning Tzuyu pretends she doesn't know a thing (Chaeyoung loves her a bit more every day because of it).

It’s their third comeback soon, Dahyun’s excited to no end because she’s getting the chorus part and she’s never seen her this nervous about anything. She can barely stay still even in the bed they share now, so Chaeyoung finds herself rolling her eyes fondly at the ball of energy laying next to her.

“Can you stay still?” she asks, the hint of a smile on her tongue. “You’re so restless I can’t even sleep.”

“I’m just _so_ excited,” she replies, turning on her side so they are face to face. “And also so nervous I could die. But mostly excited. I can’t believe we’re recording tomorrow!”

“Keep it down,” Chae shushes. “You’ll wake Tzuyu.”

“She sleeps like a rock,” Dahyun dismisses, her hand reaching for a loose strand of hair, and tucks it behind Chaeyoung’s ear. She doesn’t know why, but the action makes Chaeyoung feel butterflies. “And your rap sounds really cool too.”

She smirks. “Our joint rap, you mean. And yes, it does.”

“Do you like sharing with me?” Dahyun asks, suddenly looking conflicted. “Do you mind that everything is, like, between the two of us?”

Chaeyoung frowns. “What?”

“The rap parts,” she says, but Chaeyoung can tell that she means everything, but mostly _the bed_. “It’s like, wherever Dahyun goes, Chaeyoung is never too far. Do you mind that?”

“If anything, it’s wherever _Chaeyoung_ goes, Dahyun follows,” she says, which earns her a smack across the arm and a muffled laugh.

“Stop it,” Dahyun rolls her eyes, incredibly fond. “I’m being serious.”

Chaeyoung had never thought of it like that. It feels like the most natural thing in the world to be linked to Dahyun, to share things with her. It makes her heart start racing, that people think her and Dahyun are a duo, that they are in sync. This, Chaeyoung thinks, is how things are meant to be. Before Dahyun had left, before they even figured out they wanted to be idols — this was Chaeyoung’s vision of the future. To share her life with Dahyun, one way or another. She shakes her head.

“No,” she replies, truthfully. “I don’t mind. I think I like it.”

Dahyun looks so relieved she could cry. “Okay.”

Chaeyoung lays her head on Dahyun’s chest and listens to the beat of her heart; evens out her breathing so they both beat like one as she lulls herself to sleep. Then she’s woken up abruptly seconds later by high-pitched screaming.

“Kill it!” she hears. “ _Kill_ _it_ , Jeongyeon!”

Dahyun climbs off Chaeyoung’s bed before Tzuyu can turn the lights on, and the three of them walk to the kitchen, where Jihyo is standing on top of a chair, screaming her lungs out. Nayeon’s on the counter, feet up and all and Chaeyoung thinks Jeongyeon is gonna pass out when she notices. Sana, Momo and Mina walk in seconds later, hair disheveled and in pajamas. 

“What the fuck’s happening?” Chaeyoung asks when she gets there, as Jeongyeon holds up a slipper and looks frantically around the place for something.

“Language!” Jihyo says.

“Bug,” is all Nayeon says before Sana and Momo are scrambling to climb on the remaining chairs, squealing in fear. Mina wraps an arm around Chaeyoung, afraid.

“Everyone shut up,” Jeongyeon groans. “I’m trying to _kill_ this thing — Wait, I think I found it!”

Before Jeongyeon can slam the slipper down on the ground, Dahyun rolls her eyes and stops her arm mid-air. “Don’t be so dramatic, it's just a moth. I’ll release it.”

Nayeon squirms. “Quickly!”

Dahyun takes a glass from the cupboard, and urges Tzuyu to get her a sheet of paper from next to the printer in the office no one uses. She nods and leaves to find it while Dahyun corners the bug, and when Tzuyu comes back and handles it to her, she traps the moth under the glass, gently not to scare the thing. She slides the paper underneath the glass and soon the bug is caught.

Chaeyoung hates bugs, barely has any sympathy for them. Still, she watches as Dahyun opens the kitchen window and she gently removes the paper from underneath the glass, her touch never unkind, not even to this small, little bug. This ugly little thing.

“Bye,” she whispers to it, as the moth flies off into the night.

Chaeyoung feels her heart skip a beat, and it’s so stupid it makes sense that that is the moment where she, essentially, realizes she's in love with her best friend.

She doesn’t do anything about it for the next three years. 

It’s not that she’s scared — she is, she’s absolutely terrified, but it’s not the reason she doesn’t say anything — it’s just, she’s happy with Dahyun like this, next to her all the time, filing the silences, sometimes _being_ the silence, and she doesn’t really need anything else, you know? She holds her hand a lot more, plants more kisses to her cheek, and figures this must be what happiness is. 

Just like how the sun shines during the day, just like sharing things with Dahyun, admitting she loves her feels like the most natural thing in the world, like she’s known this all along and now she’s just aware of it. She’s in love with Dahyun, and the world keeps on turning.

It’s her nineteenth birthday, and they are celebrating in Japan. The cicadas are much louder here than in Korea, and she likes listening to them at the night; they inspire her to write songs. Dahyun and her share a Hotel room, and Dahyun likes to stare at the window, right at them as they light the night on Jeju Island.

“They are really beautiful,” she murmurs, her eyes trailing after them. Chaeyoung walks up to her, wraps her arms around her waist, and stares at the little lights with her. “I wish I could live by the beach. Maybe even here.”

“Do you not like the city?” Chaeyoung questions.

“I like it,” Dahyun nods slightly as Chaeyoung hides her face on her neck, and she hums in approval. “I just miss being far away from it, like when we were kids.”

The mention of their childhood brings a smile to Chaeyoung’s lips. “It was peaceful there. It was easier to paint there, too.”

“Yeah, it was. I can’t sleep sometimes with all the noise,” she confesses. “Well, sharing with you helps.”

They never really talk about the fact that they still share the bed. It’s something that’s out there — all of the girls know by now, of course, especially because they do it even on tour, but Dahyun avoids the subject like it’s the plague, so the acknowledgment makes Chaeyoung’s heart skip a beat.

She pulls away and hums, trying to sound casual. “It helps me too.”

Dahyun finally steps out of the window and starts looking around the hotel room. They arrived yesterday, but between the party the girls threw for Chaeyoung and getting ready for said party, she barely had any time to look through the room, most specifically, the fridge. She opens it to find a bar of chocolate, and Dahyun squeals in excitement. 

“Bingo!” she exclaims. “Found chocolate!”

She has chocolate smeared all over her lips fairly soon. The sight makes Chaeyoung feel butterflies, fondness setting in her belly like warmth. Six-year-old Chaeyoung had made a very bold statement; that she wouldn’t be able to forget the way Dahyun’s eyes crinkled when she smiled, or the way she’s fascinated by bugs, or the way Dahyun eats chocolate like it’s the last thing she’ll ever eat. 

Despite being so stubborn and young, six-year-old Chaeyoung had a point. She’d never be able to forget someone like Kim Dahyun, no matter how mad she wanted to be at her for leaving. No matter how much she wanted to forget her, sometimes.

Kim Dahyun stays with her even when she’s gone. She pushes her way to her heart, makes a home there, barely makes room for anything else, really. Chaeyoung touches the puzzle piece dangling from her neck.

Dahyun licks the chocolate off her fingers, one by one, and looks up to her. There are traces of chocolate on the corner of her lips, and Chaeyoung wants to kiss it all away. “There’s — you have some chocolate left.”

Dahyun swallows. “Where?”

Chaeyoung walks up to where Dahyun is, stays a few feet away from her. Tentatively, Chaeyoung’s hand rises to cup Dahyun’s face, and she touches the spot on the corner of her mouth where the chocolate is. She feels her shiver, and Chaeyoung swallows visibly. “Here.”

She doesn’t move, her hand still cupping Dahyun’s face, the other tracing her lip. It feels like an eternity.

“Dahyun,” she says. “I’m in love with you.”

She lets the words slip out of her mouth like she’s stating what she wants to have for dinner, and they just feel natural. Meant to be. She thinks it’s a bit ironic, how she used to laugh at the word destiny, but somehow it’s the only word she can think of when she thinks about their relationship.

She knows it’s harder for Dahyun, in a lot more ways than one. She’s not spontaneous, she’s not open about her feelings, and she doesn’t talk about them. Chaeyoung holds her breath like she’s underwater, like if she breathes Dahyun will disappear somehow.

Dahyun tenses almost immediately and steps away. She says, “It’s harder for me.”

Chaeyoung catches her hands as they start fidgeting with the puzzle pendant, and she realizes she hasn’t seen her this nervous in a long time. She knows; of course Chaeyoung knows. She knows her like the back of her own hand.

“I know,” she nods. Dahyun bites her lip. Chaeyoung watches her do so.

“I wore the necklace every day,” she says. “I thought I’d come back, but I never did.”

Chaeyoung almost steps away; sometimes talking about it hurts, stupid as it sounds, but Dahyun looks almost desperate. Her eyes are pleading. _Did you wait for me too? Did you think of me?_

“I know,” Chaeyoung nods. “I know.” _I waited for you, too._

“We were so young but I — I _knew_ , Chae,” she says, choked up. Ever the emotional one. “I knew that you and I were...”

“... Meant to find each other.”

Dahyun stares at her, her eyes heavy, and she nods. She says, “I love you, Chaeyoung.”

She takes Dahyun’s face and kisses her, _damn it_ , she’s waited over seven fucking years, thank you very much. She tastes like chocolate, just like she’d imagined. Dahyun’s shy, scared at first, but she kisses back. The kiss is slow, tentative, and Chaeyoung’s heart catches in her throat. Even if she’s nervous it never feels like it’s wrong. Chaeyoung kisses Dahyun, and the world keeps spinning, waiting for no one. She doesn’t mind. The world won’t wait for her, but Dahyun will.

Six-year-old Chaeyoung would be proud, she thinks.

They are on the beach, on their last day at Jeju Island.

Momo and Sana are splashing Nayeon by the shore, Mina and Jihyo are reading and sunbathing while Tzuyu and Jeongyeon go find seashells that get washed ashore to bring to their families. She holds Dahyun’s hand as she shakes the sand off her bikini top, thinks about maybe getting a tan and some new sunglasses.

Dahyun laughs at all her jokes, the sun on her pale skin, and she draws circles on her skin. If Chaeyoung closes her eyes, she can see the shapes in the back of her mind.

"Hey," Dahyun calls, kicking at the sand beneath her feet. “Do you believe in soulmates now?”

She's playing with the necklace that hangs over her neck with her free hand, her fingers rubbing at the already half-chipped golden details ( _Hey, I got it at a yard sale!_ Dahyun's voice echoes inside her head). The sun catches the remaining golden details, like that day she gifted Chaeyoung her own. Chaeyoung stares at it for a long, long time.

There is some poetry in this old, cheap necklace she and Dahyun share that Chaeyoung still wears like it's the most precious thing she owns no matter how much she wished she didn't, some days. The poetry isn't in the cheesy design or in the puzzle piece itself; sometimes Chaeyoung thinks that the poetry is in the fact that when she wears this necklace, she feels like she's six again, and she's chasing after Dahyun while under the summer sun, and there's not a single cloud in the sky. The years they shared together. Other times she thinks it's not even the necklace; sometimes it's just about Dahyun. About holding her close to her chest even when she's not there.

She thinks that maybe that’s what this whole soulmates thing is about.

"Maybe," she says.

**Author's Note:**

> [ you're the only friend i need ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzTG_MpwCWk)   
>  [sharing beds like little kids](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzTG_MpwCWk)   
>  [laughing 'til our ribs get tough](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzTG_MpwCWk)   
>  [but that will never be enough](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzTG_MpwCWk)


End file.
